Arming America : the origins of a national gun culture / Michael A. Bellesiles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bellesiles, Michael A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Firearms ownership--United States--History.

Firearms ownership.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

603 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Summary:

How and when did Americans develop their obsession with guns? Is gun-related violence so deeply embedded in American historical experience as to be immutable? The accepted answers to these questions are "mythology," says Michael A. Bellesiles.

Basing his arguments on sound and prodigious research, Bellesiles makes it clear that gun ownership was the exception -- even on the frontier -- until the age of industrialization. In Colonial America the average citizen had virtually no access to or training in the use of firearms, and the few guns that did exist were kept under strict control. No guns were made in America until after the Revolution, and there were few gunsmiths to keep them in repair.

Bellesiles shows that the U.S. government, almost from its inception, worked to arm its citizens, but it met only public indifference and resistance until the 1850s, when technological advances -- such as repeating revolvers with self-contained bullets -- contributed to a surge in gun manufacturing. Finally, we see how the soaring gun production engendered by the Civil War, and the decision to allow soldiers to keep their weapons at the end of the conflict, transformed the gun from a seldom-needed tool to a perceived necessity -- opposing ideas that are still at the center of the fight for and against gun control today.

Michael A. Bellesiles's research set off a chain of passionate reaction after its publication in the Journal of American History in 1996, and Arming America is certain to be one of the most controversial and widely read books on the subject.

Contents:

Introduction: In Search of Guns 3

1 The European Gun Heritage 17

2 The Role of Guns in the Conquest of North America 40

3 Guns in the Daily Life of Colonial America 70

4 Creation of the First American Gun Culture: Indians and Firearms 111

5 Brown Bess in the Wilderness 142

6 A People Numerous and Unarmed 172

7 Government Promotion of Gun Production 208

8 From Indifference to Disdain 261

9 Creation of a Gun Subculture 305

10 The Arming of the American People 372.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0375402101

OCLC:

44947512